Albert Speer
(born in Grand Duchy of Baden), later |birth = |death = |cause of death = |occupation = , , Politician |spouse = Margarete Weber |children = Five |political party = |political office = , Minister of Armaments and War Production }} }} Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer, (19 March 1905 – 1 September 1981), was a German architect, author and, for part of World War II, Minister of Armaments and War Production, sometimes called "the first architect of the Third Reich". Speer joined the Nazi Party in 1931. His architectural skills made him increasingly prominent within the Party and he became a member of Adolf Hitler's inner circle. Speer made plans to reconstruct Berlin on a grand scale, with huge buildings, wide boulevards, and a reorganized transportation system. As Minister of Armaments and War Production, Speer was so successful that Germany's war production continued to increase despite massive and devastating Allied bombing. After the war, he was tried at Nuremberg and sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in the Nazi regime, principally for the use of forced labor. He served most of his sentence at Spandau Prison in West Berlin, and was released on 1 October 1966. Upon his release, he published two autobiographical works, and a third book on the SS. Speer has been dubbed the "the Nazi who said sorry" owing to his repentance at trial and sincere expressions of remorse in his last years. Albert Speer in The Man With the Iron Heart Albert Speer'Speer is not named in the book, but the Point of Divergence does not seem to have changed the composition of the Nuremberg rogues gallery. was one of nearly two dozenThe Man With the Iron Heart'', pg. 260. German officials who were captured by the Allies at the end of World War II. The Allies planned to try Speer and the other men for war crimes. Such plans were disrupted twice by the German Freedom Front, first in November 1945 when the GFF destroyed the Palace of Justice in NurembergIbid., pg. 108. and second in 1946, when the GFF destroyed the American residency zone in Frankfurt with a radium bomb.Ibid., pg. 260. In 1947, the Soviets decided to try the officials in their zone. The GFF prevented this by crashing a plane into the courthouse, killing all the lawyers and judges, but leaving the accused unharmed.Ibid., pg. 407-8. Albert Speer in "Ready for the Fatherland" During the cold war era, all official buildings built in the Fascist Bloc were in what critics in other countries derisively called '''Albert Speer Gothic: huge colonnades and great vertical masses, all intended to show the individual what an ant he was when set against the immense power of the State.See, eg.Counting Up, Counting Down, p. 92-93, TPB. Albert Speer in ''In the Presence of Mine Enemies'' Albert Speer was a Nazi Party official and the original First Architect of the [[Germany (In the Presence of Mine Enemies)|Greater German Reich]]. He was charged with building many architectural memorials as tributes to the greatness of Germany in general and to its victory in World War II in particular., See, e.g., ''In the Presence of Mine Enemies'', pg. 3. Even as late as 2010, his style could be seen all over Germany. References Category:German Cabinet Members Category:POWs of World War II Category:War Criminals